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Avery Dennison Corporation (AVY)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 3, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Avery Dennison's Earnings Conference Call for the Fourth Quarter Full Ended Year. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay from 9 AM Pacific Time today through midnight Pacific Time, February 6. To access the replay, please dial 1-800-633-8284 or 402-977-9140 for international callers. The conference ID number is 21782905. I would now like to turn the conference over to Cindy Guenther, Avery Dennison's Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. You may begin.

Cynthia S. Guenther - Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Franz, and welcome, everyone. Today, we'll discuss our preliminary unaudited fourth quarter and full year 2015 results as well as our outlook for 2016. The non-GAAP financial measures that we use are defined, qualified, and reconciled with GAAP on schedules A-2 to A-5 of the financial statements accompanying today's earnings release. We remind you that we'll make certain predictive statements that reflect our current views and estimates about our future performance and financial results. These forward-looking statements are made subject to the Safe Harbor Statement included in today's earnings release. Making formal remarks today will be Dean Scarborough, Chairman and CEO; and Anne Bramman, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Mitch Butier, President and Chief Operating Officer, is also with us today to participate in the Q&A portion of the call. And now, I'll turn the call over to Dean. Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Cindy, and good day, everyone. I'm very pleased to report another year of excellent progress toward our long-term goals. We delivered strong organic sales growth and double-digit growth in adjusted earnings per share above the high-end of our original guidance range. We continued our disciplined execution of our long-term capital allocation strategy, yielding free cash flow of over $325 million and more than 3.5-point improvement in return on total capital relative to our 2013 baseline. We also distributed $365 million of cash to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and dividends. Given challenging economic conditions in many parts of the world and significant headwinds from currency translation, these results speak not only to the resilience of our businesses but to the creativity and commitment of our associates worldwide. And I'd really like to thank the team for delivering such a great year. What continues to guide…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question from the line of Ghansham Panjabi from Robert W. Baird. Please go ahead. Ghansham Panjabi - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Hey, guys. Good morning. Maybe just, first off, on the macro. Obviously, you sell into many different end-markets on a global basis. Can you just, first off, give us your view of what the global macro looks like from Avery's perspective, the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and also, Asia? Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Ghansham, this is Dean. Hi. Yeah, it's always hard to put ourselves in that position given our lack of forward visibility. I think, last year, we experienced reasonably strong growth in Europe, again, probably a little bit better than our expectations, but I kind of relate that back to reasonable amount of consumer spending there. The U.S. was not as strong as Europe, but stronger than we expected going into the year. So, I would say those two economies are relatively stable. I don't think any big – we're not expecting any big surprises in mature markets and feel good about the economies there and prospects. Latin America's been a challenge, but also good for us. I would say, because we're a stable player in the region. We've been able to protect our dollar-based profits in that region through a lot of price increases given the challenges there. And then, Asia has been strong. India, ASEAN, very strong throughout the year. And China was the one area where I think we were continuously disappointed in for the last – well, four of the last five quarters. Our hypothesis is that inventories in that market were kind of full. And we had customers telling us anecdotally that they just didn't have the sales. We did…

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from the line of George Staphos from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. You may proceed.

Alex Wang - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

Morning. It's actually Alex Wang sitting in for George. Thanks for taking our question. First question, can you just remind us, in RBIS, how much DNA rolls off, I believe, related to accounting from a few years ago? And when the timing of that – how that progresses? Anne L. Bramman - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Yeah. So good morning. So really we're going to see the biggest benefit coming through in 2017. It's modest in 2016. It's around $4 million to $5 million. But you should see that ramp up starting 2017.

Alex Wang - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

Understood. And just as a follow-on, I know you mentioned in the slide deck relatively immaterial, but you spoke or alluded to some product line divestitures. If you could just provide some color around that that'd be helpful. Thank you. Anne L. Bramman - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So we had a very small product line divestiture back in the spring timeframe in Europe. So it was in the RBIS segment, and it was – very duly impact EBIT on very small sales dollars.

Alex Wang - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

Okay. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from line of Scott Gaffner with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Thanks. Good morning. Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Scott. Mitchell R. Butier - President & Chief Operating Officer: Morning. Anne L. Bramman - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Hi, Scott.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Just looking at the CapEx for a minute, the $200 million, Dean. I think you mentioned some growth projects as the main reason why the CapEx is ramping up year-over-year. Can you talk about those projects and why the investment in 2016? Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. So I think, typically, the way we'd characterize our CapEx is a third growth, a third productivity, a third IT maintenance capital. And actually it's going to move to about 50% of growth capital spending. We started a number of projects later in the year. We need some new Graphics capacity in the U.S. So we're going to be investing in some new capability there. We're also going to get a productivity benefit from that investment. It's going to take us a while to play it out. It's a fairly decent size investment. We need new coating capacity in Asia, and so we're going to be in the process of building a new water-based coating line there. And then we've got some IT projects in North America. We've got a fairly old system in the U.S. that we're going to upgrade and replace. So those are some of the key investments in pressure-sensitive materials. In RBIS, clearly, RFID with its rapid growth, we're continuing to invest there as well with some of the heat transfer technology. We also are spending some capital on automation in that business to continue to drive better labor productivity. It's a more labor-intense business than Materials, as well as to help us facilitate a more efficient footprint.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Okay. And the return on invested capital on these projects, what are return on total capital, how do you kind of look at it? Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well above our hurdle rate.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Okay. And then, Dean, on pressure-sensitive materials, I think, if I heard you correctly, the long-term operating margin target was 11%. And then... Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Or greater.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Or greater. I think if I have the number right, we were up well above that in 2015. And then I think Anne mentioned some raw material price cost benefits in 2015 and then the comment was around over the business cycle expect that to normalize. So as we move to 2016, how difficult is it to get margins up in pressure-sensitive materials in 2016 given that commentary? Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I think, as you might guess, most operating plans for businesses always look for improvement every single year. So, we're not really different than anybody else. So, we're not going to give specific guidance for operating margins by segment. I think the team has done a good job driving mix, growing faster in high-value segments, and at the same time, getting more competitive in some of the more competitive segments frankly, and driving improvement there. For us, Pressure-sensitive materials is a high-return business. It is at a multiple of our cost of capital. And driving growth, top line growth is also an important goal for us. So, I feel good about the position of the business. And, again, it's – right now with oil prices low, I know a lot of people are saying, well, that should really help you. And, to be honest, we haven't seen that much change in the commodities we buy over the last 90 days to 120 days. As you know, a lot of the things we buy are several steps down from crude oil. And then there's still some economies where we're seeing inflation. So, I think the team has done a good job. We're going to continue to pursue our strategy of driving productivity, driving top line growth and mix. And we have the expectation to continue to drive for more improvement. Those targets that we have that we had set for 2018 are not a cap. They're simply a long-term sort of guidance range, but we feel confident today that we can operate at 11% or over.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Okay. Well, congrats on the quarter, but more importantly, congratulations on hitting the targets from 2012 to 2015. Not that many companies put out these long-term targets and actually hit the numbers, and you guys did a great job. So, good luck on the next five-year plan. Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you. Mitchell R. Butier - President & Chief Operating Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question from the line of Anthony Pettinari from Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Anthony Pettinari - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Good morning. Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning.

Anthony Pettinari - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Regarding the organic sales growth guidance, you referenced the loss of a large customer in PSM. Understanding that you may be limited in what you can say, can you help us understand, is that customer going to a different technology or a different – to a competitor, or are there any read-throughs for the rest of your business? Or if you can give us any color there, it would be helpful. Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Go ahead, Mitch. Mitchell R. Butier - President & Chief Operating Officer: Yeah. So, Anthony, I'll answer the last part of your question first. There's no knock-on effects or implications to the rest of the business in PSM. This is specifically within the Performance Tapes business, which is an application business. And one application is not losing share, if you will, to another competitor. There's a technology change in the handset. So, our focus when we've talked about investing in this business, it's really been the focus on the industrial tapes side where we did continue to see growth in Q4 and it's going to be a key focus for us going forward. So, we look at this as an application we got a few years ago, team did a great job in driving value in achieving our objectives on this application and we knew eventually we'd have a sunset and it's coming in 2016.

Anthony Pettinari - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Okay. That's helpful. And then just a follow-up on Scott's question on PSM margins. I guess last year you saw PSM margins up 150 basis points. Is it possible to bucket that roughly between productivity versus variable flow-through on volumes versus price cost? And then thinking about PSM margins in 2016 maybe potentially being down a bit kind of asking the same question backwards, where are you giving up the margin versus productivity, volumes, price cost? Anne L. Bramman - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Yeah. So, when we look at PSM for 2015, by and large by a multiple of two times to three times the benefit in margin came from net productivity and restructuring. So that really was driving the margin improvement that we saw for the year. Mitchell R. Butier - President & Chief Operating Officer: And your question going into 2016, when we laid out this business, if you look at 2012 when we laid out long-term targets, we said 9% to 10% operating margin target. We passed and exceeded that. We've now set 10% to 11% as the operating margin for this business. And it's really, what we've said, is those are proxies for what would make a high return on capital business here. And that is our focus. And we've been testing and getting achieving new heights. And we don't, as Dean said earlier, see this as a cap in any way. We all have operating plans to look to see how do we test this to even further new heights. But the reason that we're saying we're confident we can hold the 11% or more in this business is, one, we feel that's a very high return business, we've got to continue to focus on growing it then as we've done a great job over the last few years. And two, just macro uncertainty as far as what's out there within the economy and all the headlines everybody's reading.

Anthony Pettinari - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Okay. That's helpful. I'll turn it over.

Operator

Operator

Our next question from the line of Adam Josephson with KeyBanc Capital Markets. You may proceed.

Marc Solecitto - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Hi. Good morning. It's actually Marc Solecitto on for Adam. Thanks for taking our questions. Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Sure.

Marc Solecitto - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

First question we had, you're projecting a modest slowdown in organic growth. I know you talked about the customer loss in your tapes business, but were there any other factors in that modest slowdown? Anne L. Bramman - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: No, there really wasn't. That was a component when we looked at the total guidance.

Marc Solecitto - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thanks. And second question, as far as FX rates, what FX rates are you assuming in your 2016 guidance? Anne L. Bramman - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So, right now, we've got the euro pegged slightly under $1.09.

Marc Solecitto - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Okay. Great. Thank you. I'll turn it over.

Operator

Operator

Our next question from the line of Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Hi. Good morning. Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Jeff.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Hi. How are you? Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Good.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

How large is your RFID business now? Mitchell R. Butier - President & Chief Operating Officer: About $150 million in 2015.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

In the RBIS segment, you took about a $16 million charge. Where is that geographically? That is, what part of the RBIS operation are you restructuring? And can you describe that a little bit more closely? Anne L. Bramman - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So, the charge is primarily in the SG&A line. There is a portion that goes through the gross profit line. But I would say it's probably an 80-20, 75% to 80% going through SG&A. There's a number of initiatives going on. First, there's a footprint – we're looking at footprint consolidation to get efficiency in the business. And then, secondly, we also, as we've talked about in the prior quarter, looking at driving more efficiency in the regional basis, getting out some of the layers of management in the business. And so, that's a big component of the SG&A line as well. Mitchell R. Butier - President & Chief Operating Officer: Yeah. So just to add on to that, Jeff, so the footprint consolidations Anne talked about, we've announced in Eastern U.S. as well as Western Europe. And then, one of the overall objectives here is to lower costs so we can be more competitive in all segments. And so, we're cutting SG&A across the board, if you will, on a number of areas. But it's not just about lowering costs, it's actually about streamlining the management structure to move decision points closer to the customer and close to market, so we can be faster and more nimble in the market. So, that's what we're doing. So, the SG&A is kind of broad-based. But it's, again, not just around cost reduction, it's also around getting quicker in the marketplace.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Okay. And could you talk a little bit about Pressure-sensitive Material pricing trends? Are prices up year-over-year or down or up a little bit or down a little bit? Mitchell R. Butier - President & Chief Operating Officer: We're talking about this generally on a net basis. So, when you look at the net impact of pricing and deflation, as we've commented, we saw modest benefits in Q4 again, as we've seen in the previous couple of quarters. If you look at kind of where we fit now flowing into 2016, it's essentially neutral, the net impact between pricing and raw materials. And it's hard to give a very broad comment on those trends globally because it depend region by region. And some regions were raising prices quite dramatically, double-digits, to offset inflation. Other regions, clearly, in some regions we have some big deflation and it's a competitive environment. And we're working through that. One thing I do want to say is we talked last year about a couple of course corrections we're making and one of them was rebalancing the dynamics between price volume and mix within PSM. I think, largely, what you're seeing is, we've done a good job of doing that of rebalancing those dynamics. And we talked about getting more disciplined in the less differentiated segments within PSM, and we've done that as well. And the focus is how do we continue to drive growth profitably across all the segments?

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

I mean, not on a net basis. On an absolute basis, how are your local prices? Mitchell R. Butier - President & Chief Operating Officer: We don't provide commentary on that.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Okay. How much did you contribute to your pension plan this year? Anne L. Bramman - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: We didn't make any contributions to the plan.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Is there any inflation in paper prices in PSM? Mitchell R. Butier - President & Chief Operating Officer: We're seeing some pressure in Europe, generally because of the currency shifts that you're seeing there, but that's the only place we're really seeing pressure.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

The last question is, once you get through the big spending in 2016 on capital, what happens in 2017? Where is your more normalized level of CapEx? Anne L. Bramman - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So when you look at our long-term goals, we've really had set the target of around $175 million to $200 million a year for CapEx spending...

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Okay. Great. Thank you so much. Anne L. Bramman - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: ...on average. Yeah.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Yeah.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Chris Kapsch with BB&T Capital Markets. You may proceed. Christopher J. Kapsch - BB&T Capital Markets: Yeah. Good morning. I had a follow-up on the margin discussion in pressure-sensitive. I think your formal comments were that despite the organic volume growth that that did not benefit mix because of the absence of the week of sales. And I'm just trying to understand why that would matter. And also if there's some mix effect here maybe becoming more pronounced on a seasonal basis with the e-commerce sort of being concentrated in the December quarter. Is there any adverse effect from stronger demand in e-commerce related labels on mix in this quarter? And if so, would that inflect starting in the first quarter? Mitchell R. Butier - President & Chief Operating Officer: Yes. So there are several questions in there. So let me try to take a couple of them. So one is if you look at our margins, you asked about the 53rd week impact and what's the variable flow-through from volume. So we did see what you'd typically expect from a volume flow-through from the growth. But if you think about the lack of the extra week that we had, that was pure variable flow-through from (43:47) last year. And we commented about the benefit that it gave us to 2014 earnings, and we expect it to come back down more than $0.10 in Q4. So that's... Christopher J. Kapsch - BB&T Capital Markets: There's more shipping days than really just running the coaters. Got it, okay. Mitchell R. Butier - President & Chief Operating Officer: And you've got your fixed cost structure which stays solid for the quarter, and you've got an extra shipping week. So that was what that item's…

Operator

Operator

Our last question is a follow-up from the line of Scott Gaffner from Barclays. Please go ahead, sir.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Thanks. Just a couple of quick follow-ups. On the RFID acceleration, you mentioned, Dean, can you just walk us through that a little bit? I mean, was there anything in the fourth quarter? I mean, obviously, when we look at the retail data, e-commerce grew a lot faster than brick-and-mortar. I mean, did the pace of inquiries increased in 4Q or is this just been a steady increase throughout the year around interest in RFID? Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I would characterize it this way; the folks that have invested in RFID are accelerating what they're doing. So, we had a couple of large customers ask us, can we go even faster? I think the team did a great job of accommodating that pretty seamlessly. I mean our growth in the quarter was almost 90%. I mean that's a lot for any operations and supply chain team to execute. And as retailers continue to understand the need for really accurate inventories to play in the omni-channel world, I think it's becoming – I won't say a no-brainer, but it's becoming an essential part of being competitive. And that's the discussion that's going on. And so, retailers are talking mainly about how and not if. So, I think this will be a great growth platform for us for the next few years.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

And how do you see your ability to continue to reduce the cost structure in the business as RFID grows? I mean, can you take a significant cost out of the chips or where would the cost savings come from, I guess, maybe is a better question as you ramp this business up? Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. It comes from a combination, so it's sort of all what I would characterize as all levels, right? We have scale in purchasing chips. We have an ability to integrate the manufacturing of the antenna, the making of the inlay and integrating that into the final tag in a seamless process, which reduces materials and reduces process steps. I would literally just in Asia a couple of weeks ago looking at our operations and talking to the team and they've already figured out a way to double the productivity that we're getting on our newly installed equipment. So, I get pretty excited about that. And so far, I don't see a limit to what we're doing. We also have some longer-term programs, and I mean, in the next two years to four years where I do think we – there is an ability to take another step change in the cost reduction of an inlay, but I can't, due to confidentiality, get into the details. But we're all-in on this business and I feel really good about both our short-term and our long-term prospects.

Scott Louis Gaffner - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Great. Thanks again.

Operator

Operator

And Mr. Scarborough, there are no further questions at this time. I'll return the call back to you for your closing remarks. Dean A. Scarborough - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Franz. Well, our focus in 2016 will be the same as it's been for the last four years to deliver exceptional value for customers, our employees, and our shareholders. We're going to continue to pursue the broad strategic priorities that we've communicated, fine-tuning where appropriate, and we look forward to seeing that strategy and execution translate into superior total shareholder return over the long term. So, thanks for joining us, and we'll talk to you at the end of the next quarter.